How a browser that once dominated the web became a ghost in the machine.

History · Published 29 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Internet Explorer defined the early web, peaking at 95% market share by 2003. Though officially retired in 2022, its legacy persists through the Trident engine, which still powers enterprise compatibility modes. Discover how a project started by six people transformed into a global standard and eventually a digital relic.

Launched in 1995 as part of the Plus! for Windows 95 package, Internet Explorer began as a modest project led by Thomas Reardon. By 1999, Microsoft had scaled the effort to over 1,000 employees, investing more than US$100 million annually to secure its position. The browser's rise was fueled by aggressive bundling, which allowed it to overtake Netscape and achieve near-total market dominance by the early 2000s. This strategy, however, drew significant legal scrutiny, with both U.S. and European regulators concluding that integrating the browser into Windows harmed fair competition.

The browser's technical evolution was marked by the introduction of the Trident rendering engine in 1997 with version 4.0. Over the following decades, Internet Explorer introduced features like tabbed browsing in version 7 and eventually supported modern standards like HTML5 and WebGL in version 11. Despite these advancements, the rise of mobile operating systems like Android and iOS, alongside competitors like Firefox and Chrome, led to a steady decline in usage. Microsoft Edge officially overtook Internet Explorer in market share by November 2019.

Today, Internet Explorer exists primarily as a ghost. While the standalone application was retired on June 15, 2022, for most Windows 10 editions, its core components remain essential for legacy enterprise systems. Through 'IE Mode' in Microsoft Edge, the Trident engine continues to render older intranet sites and applications. Microsoft has committed to supporting this compatibility layer through at least 2029, ensuring that while the browser has vanished from the consumer desktop, its underlying architecture remains a necessary, if hidden, foundation for the corporate web.

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